litter
Meanings
noun
- Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
- A bed, especially a pile of straw (sometimes also with blankets) used as a bed.
- Animal bedding together with its dung.
- A mobile bed or couch transported upon or suspended from poles placed over human shoulders or animal backs.
- Synonym of stretcher, such a vehicle used for transporting the sick and injured, inclusive of designs carried in the hand.
- Any of the other similar conveyances, such as sedan chairs, hammock litters, and the like.
- Synonym of straw, grass, etc. more generally, particularly in plaster, thatch, and mulch.
- An act of giving birth to a number of live young at the same time.
- The whole group of live young born at the same time, typically in reference to mammals or (figurative, derogatory) unpleasant people or objects.
- Waste or debris, originally any mess but now particularly trash left or thrown on the ground.
- A bed, a substrate formed from loose materials.
- The layer of fallen leaves and other loose organic material on the ground in a forest.
verb
- To drop or throw trash without properly disposing of it (as discarding in public areas rather than trash receptacles).
- To scatter carelessly about.
- To strew (a place) with scattered articles.
- To give birth to, in the manner of animals.
- To produce a litter of young.
- To supply (cattle etc.) with litter; to cover with litter, as the floor of a stall.
- To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter.
adj
- comparative form of lit: more lit
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-der. Latin lectus Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āsjos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -ārius Latin -āria Late Latin lectuāria Old French litiere Anglo-Norman literebor. Middle English litere English litter Inherited from Middle English litere, borrowed from Anglo-Norman litere, from Old French litiere (“bedding; bed of loose straw; litter”), from Late Latin lectuāria, from Latin lectus + -āria.
Synonyms
Derived words
Translations
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.